books

screenplays

Exile (full-length drama) Finalist, WriteMovies; Quarterfinalist, Fade-In.
LJ lives in a U . S. of A., with a new Three Strikes Law: first crime, rehab; second crime, prison; third crime, you’re simply kicked out – permanently exiled to a designated remote area, to fend for yourself without the benefits of society. At least he used to live in that new U. S. of A. He’s just committed his third crime.

What Happened to Tom (full-length drama) Semifinalist, Moondance.
This guy wakes up to find his body’s been hijacked and turned into a human kidney dialysis machine – for nine months.

Aiding the Enemy (short drama 15min)
When Private Ann Jones faces execution for “aiding the enemy,” she points to American weapons manufacturers who sell to whatever country is in the market.

Bang Bang (short drama 30min) Finalist, Gimme Credit; Quarter-finalist, American Gem.
When a young boy playing “Cops and Robbers” jumps out at a man passing by, the man shoots him, thinking the boy’s toy gun is real. Who’s to blame?

Foreseeable (short drama 30min)
An awful choice in a time of war. Whose choice was it really?

Two Women, Road Trip, Extraterrestrial (full-length comedy)
When an independent activist and her frustrated office temp buddy embark on a quest for a chocolate bar, they pick up a hitchhiking extraterrestrial who’s stopped on Earth to ask for directions. They help her get the information she needs – and discover it’s easier to get a gun in this country than a little scientific knowledge – and decide to go with her. To become chocolate bartenders.

Boston Legal: Bang Bang (spec script) Semifinalist,Scriptapalooza.

Balls (short mockumentary 10min)
A hilarious mockumentary about men playing with balls

Here Comes the Bride (5min)
You’ll never get married again.

Let Me Entertain You (5min)
Is it a slippery slope from screen idol to snuff film?

Take Care of Your Mom While I’m Gone (3-5min)
She’s an adult. She needs a ten-year-old to take care of her?

My Life in Danger (short drama 3-5min)
When does attempted rape warrant self-defence of deadly force?

Size Matters (3-5min)
What if women were the taller sex? Ask any short man.

I am Eve (10min)
An examination exposing the irrationality and injustice of Eve’s role in Judaeo-Christianity.

If Then (5-10 min)
The end of our lives as we know them. Can’t say we didn’t see it coming.

Crime of Passion (short drama 3-5min)
The perfect solution to crimes of “passion”

Minding Our Own Business (20 min)
A collection of skits (including “The Price is Not Quite Right,” “Singin’ in the (Acid) Rain,” “Adverse Reactions,” “The Band-Aid Solution,” and “See Jane. See Dick.”) with a not-so-subtle environmental message

The Missing Link (short comedy 3-5min)
Two women and an alien enter a bar…

I’m intrigued by the psychological devastation that seems to accompany layoffs, not to mention ordinary unemployment, as well as underemployment. It doesn’t seem to be just a matter of money – it seems to be a matter of self-worth, self-esteem; personal identity seems to be at stake.

It’s an intriguing claim: one is what one does for money. And I suppose that insofar as one chooses what one does, it’s valid. But one doesn’t necessarily get to choose one’s work. That’s the false premise. Perhaps there was time one could so choose – perhaps, between 1945 and 1970, if you lived in the U.S. or Canada, and if you were white, and if you were male, and at least lower middle class.

Certainly in many European and Asian countries, the state has told people what jobs they would have. Even in the U.S. and Canada, in war time, the state made that decision: a lot of men would not otherwise have chosen to be soldiers, a lot of women would not have chosen to work in munitions factories.

But political power is not the only factor that coerces one’s career choice: economic pressures, as in the Depression, have not only determined what job one had, but whether one had a job.

And let’s not forget social pressures: the ‘career’ choices for people not privileged by sex, race, or class have always been less broad. Do you really think that every secretary chose, out of all the careers there are, to be a secretary? (Do you really think ‘secretary’ is a career?) Social conditioning, whether it be by society-at-large, the school system, or the family, has always led us, pushed us, in a certain direction.

Even when the options are many, they are few: what are the odds that, of all the jobs available, both my father and my brother would choose one in the insurance business? Pretty good, considering that it’s human nature to choose what’s familiar. My guess is that my brother didn’t even really consider being an electrician, let alone a secretary.

So there have always been constraints; what job we have (or don’t have) has never been totally up to us. Perhaps only now, as a result of downsizing and closures, with the consequent layoffs of middle management and senior workers, are the middle class older white males finding out about it. And, as usual, something doesn’t exist until the middle class older white male experiences it.

As an artist, perhaps I’ve had an advantage. Artists can rarely earn a living from their chosen work; they’ve always had to do something else for money. So we know that you don’t have to be paid for what you do in order for it to have value. We know that that attitude, though common (surely it’s responsible for the demeaning label of ‘hobby’ – not until I sold my work was I considered a real writer) is mistaken. Look carefully and you’ll see that it’s also inconsistent: in some very important cases (oddly enough, cases in which women dominate), getting paid decreases rather than increases the value of the endeavour consider mothering, consider sex. So ask any artist ‘What do you do?’ and the answer will be ‘I write’, ‘I paint’ or whatever, not ‘I’m a waiter.’ Our identities have never been confused with our jobs.

And unless non-artists learn, and learn quickly, to make the same separation, we’ll be one sorry-looking society pretty soon. It’s a sad thing: lose your job, lose your self. But it’s really nothing new – it’s no different from the empty nest syndrome and the retirement phenomenon. I have met people who want a job ‘just so as to have something to do, somewhere to go every day.’ Geez, what bankrupt pathetic souls they are. Get a life! A job is secondary.